LONG BEACH >> Much of the garbage being picked up along curbs citywide returns as energy that is enough to power more than 35,000 homes annually.

Situated on Terminal Island is the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility, a waste-to-energy plant where lease operator Covanta Energy processes 1,380 tons of solid waste a day generated from the city and the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, which own the facility under a joint agreement.

Each day starting as early as 6 a.m., trucks line up to the 118 Pier S Ave. facility, where the waste is inspected, combusted at high temperatures and scrubbed of pollutants. The product then goes into a bag house, which filters out particulate matter and ash.

The steam that’s created from burning the waste powers the turbine-generator, making about 36 megawatts a day that is then sold to Southern California Edison and put back on the grid.

The facility also recycles about 10,000 tons of ferrous metal a year. The ash is used as base material for roads.

“Our goal is to provide sustainable safe-waste disposal that complements recycling,” said Thomas DeMaio, business manager for Covanta Energy in Long Beach.

Covanta, the New Jersey-based firm that operates 45 waste-to-energy plants in North America, China and Europe, took over the 30-year operating lease in Long Beach in 2009.

This facility, the largest among three waste-to-energy plants in California, was built in 1988 in response to the pending closure of the landfill in Puente Hills at the time. (The landfill ended up staying open, though it is supposed to close next month.)

Exporting trash to other areas would have meant higher trash rates for Long Beach residents and businesses, which annually create about 368,000 tons of trash, said Charlie Tripp, bureau manager of the Southeast Resource Recovery Facility.

“We wanted to control our own destiny and handle our own waste,” he said.

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So the city sold $142.8 million in lease revenue bonds to build the facility, considered the city’s biggest public works project, Tripp said.

Since then, the facility has sold more than 5.5 billion kilowatts of electricity and has transferred $60 million in surplus revenue to the city. Also, Long Beach residents pay an average of about $22 a month on their trash bill, as opposed to Los Angeles residents, who pay an average of $38 a month, Tripp said.

As the end of the 30-year agreement approaches in 2018, both the city and Covanta will readdress the pact.

“Our plan will be to review the type of investment it will take to keep this facility viable for the next 15 to 20 years,” DeMaio said.

Contact Karen Robes Meeks at 562-714-2088.

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